February’s Pod Stars: ‘The Daily’ Is Back On Top In Podtrac’s Rankings.

The New York Times morning news podcast The Daily returned to the top spot on Podtrac’s monthly ranking of most listened-to shows. Among the publishers it measures, it says NPR News Now, the on-demand hourly newscast from the public radio network, slid back to second place after two months on top. Podtrac says NPR’s morning news podcast Up First held onto third place last month. Rounding out the top five was Cumulus Podcast Network’s Shawn Ryan Show, which entered the top five in January, but traded places with Dateline NBC last month.

The ranking also delivered the highest position yet for On Purpose with Jay Shetty. The iHeartPodcasts series climbed two spots to No. 8 in February. Beyond the top ten, the biggest mover in Podtrac’s top 20 was Audio Centro’s Spanish-language news podcast Noticentro, which drops multiple one-minute podcasts each day. Podtrac also reported that the New York Times-produced The Ezra Klein Show and Paramount’s 48 Hours made returns to the top 20, with Stephanie Soo’s Rotten Mango making its appearance in the ranker for the first time last month.

The ranking is based on Podtrac measurement data for U.S. unique monthly audience for any show that was measured for the entire month. While measurement is free for any podcast, the ranking only includes those shows that have opted in. It means that some of the biggest podcasts, like The Joe Rogan Experience, are not included in the measurement.

Podtrac says among the publishers it measures, half of the top 20 publishers had increases in unique monthly audience in February vs. January. But only two publishers had increases in download numbers month-to-month.